Check out this blog from S.W.A.R.M. (Students With A Responsible Message) council member Aaron about his experience looking for emergency contraception around the University of South Carolina campus. Spoiler alert: yeah…it’s not easy to get!…

Michian resident Jenni Lane shared her story on RH Reality Check, explaining that she made the painful decision to terminate her pregnancy because the fetus suffered from a severe brain malformation. HB 5711 would make it illegal for Jenni to have an abortion.

Michigan lawmakers made it even clearer how they feel about the rights of women state. This week, Michigan lawmakers blocked women like …

I wish I could say that the person who asked me this question had been living under a rock for the better part of the last thirty years (which itself would be a feet since they are only 19), but no. This question was actually asked to me by someone who I consider to be a very intelligent individual, they were not taught it in school and …

The Virginia Board of Social Services wanted to bar state-licensed adoption agencies from discriminating against potential adopters because of their sexual orientation. In the commonwealth, there are …

The Knowledge is Best youth council is now accepting applications for next school year! A project of Tell Them and Advocates for Youth, this youth council is composed of 10 awesome college and university students across the state, all working to promote comprehensive sex ed programs and policies.

Send you applications in now! Council members learn how to be fierce advocates, and also do fun and amazing things (letter writing parties over burritos; dance parties to raise awareness about SC’s old sex ed law; etc). Check it out here! Deadline for applications …

Check out the new campaign from Massachussetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy: "What’s Next?": www.massteenpregnancy.org/policy/whats-next. It’s a tongue-in-cheek way to call Congress out for proposing cuts to programs like Title X and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative…

Last week, the Virginia General Assembly passed a last-minute bill (SB924) with an amendment redefining “hospital” to include “facilities in which five or more first-trimester abortions per month are performed.” This means the commonwealth’s Board of Health will now have to make first-trimester abortion providers conform to hospital regulations in order to stay open. That can include things like parking lot size, hallway width, and other non-medical building regulations that would effectively force providers who can’t pay for architectural updates to shut down.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’d like to pause and write a little love letter to the sexual and reproductive health and rights movement. We’re not always on the same page, and sometimes I am super frustrated by how things are moving (or not moving), but you rock, and I appreciate you.

I appreciate you because without you I’d feel pretty isolated and alone. It’s hard growing up in a conservative/ Southern/ religious/ anti-choice community, when you are struggling to formulate your own views and identity and you’re pretty …

Last week, tens of thousands of people participated in the March for Life, an annual anti-abortion rally in DC. Fifteen years ago, I marched with them as an anti-choice youth activist.

I was there as part of school-sponsored trip. My Catholic school bused us up, and we joined scores of other Catholic school kids on the march. I remember it being very cold, I remember listening to my 311 CD and hanging out with friends on the bus. What I don’t remember is thinking about was the morality of …

Hi all – the Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition is sponsoring a pro-choice lobby day in Richmond, VA this Thursday, January 27th. Anti-choice legislators in Virginia are gearing up to repeal abortion access, contraceptive access, and sex education in the Commonwealth. We need people to come to Richmond and stand up for reproductive freedom!!

The Kentucky State Senate last week passed an ultrasound bill last week that is ridiculous, medically unnecessary, and downright insulting to women. Senate Bill 9 (passed 32-5) would require that a woman seeking an abortion in Kentucky wait 24 hours and also view an ultrasound of the fetus. If a woman chooses to avert her eyes from the ultrasound, a doctor would still have to describe the image to her.

Restrictions like this aren’t uncommon – in fact, 20 states either require that an ultrasound take place or be …

Here’s the scoop, folks – last year a number of major abortion restrictions were passed at the state level. The one that got the most attention, however, was the Nebraska law, passed in April. This law bans abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation with the exception of when the woman’s life is endangered or her physical health is severely compromised.

It’s important to know about this law for a few reasons. First, it’s based on claims about the ability of a fetus to feel pain – a new sort of approach …

Good news out of Merrill, WI — the school board has voted to adopt a comprehensive sex education curriculum for Human Growth and Development class! The decision passed six to two last week, and comes at the heels of both a petition by a group of parents against the changes and a failure by the local advisory committee to recommend a curriculum. In Wisconsin, Governor Doyle signed the Healthy Youth Act into law in February, requiring schools that choose to teach sex education to include information about both abstinence and contraception, …

If you’re a college or university student in South Carolina and you’re interested in sexual health/ activism, apply now to be part of a newly formed statewide youth leadership council. The South Carolina Youth for Policy Change council is a project of Tell Them and Advocates for Youth, and its mission is to build the network of college and community advocates that support age appropriate, comprehensive sex education in South Carolina. You will work to raise awareness and constituent support in their community and schools about sexual health policies through …

Next month, Equality North Carolina will honor State House Speaker Joe Hackney for his leadership in enacting a new anti-bullying law that will protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth in N.C. schools.

Upon learning of this via email, State Rep. Larry Brown decided to reply with a blatant display of homophobia. In an email to nearly 60 people, he blasted the “queers” and “fruitloops” who would be celebrating the new anti-bullying measure.

I know you are a political figure that gets a lot of attention. I know that, in the past, you have received a lot of heckling from, well, liberal people like me. I (we) tend to disagree with a lot of your politics, and think of you as being anti-feminist for making statements like school-based health clinics are actually “sex clinics” designed to funnel more 13 year olds to have abortion at Planned Parenthood without parental consent. Um, huh?

It only takes a minute – if you live in Pennsylvania, we need your help to convince leaders in the PA House of Representatives to support the Healthy Youth Act!Click here to send an email to your rep, and to the House leaders who haven’t committed to call the bill to the floor for a vote (the only way it can move forward).

A little about the Healthy Youth Act (HB 1163) – it would create a minimum standard for sex education in PA public schools. …

This story made me queasy: a young woman in DC was shot over the weekend because the shooter was mad that he couldn’t get her phone number. (BTW, she is currently doing well, but surgeons still need to remove a bullet from her ankle.) Totally horrific and unnecessary, but also super sexist. This woman was walking with friends when a man asked for her phone number. She said no, and he said he would start shooting if she didn’t give him her number, and then opened fire. …

From billboards to bus rides — as Sarah and others have written about before, the Georgia Right to Life group recently launched an anti-abortion campaign specifically targeting African American communities. Well, it looks like a new component to this broad campaign in the southern states is taking off – this summer, “Pro-Life Freedom Rides” will be taking place between Washington, DC, Birmingham, AL and Atlanta, GA. According to the Montgomery Advisor, a group of ministers is planning to make an announcement this morning about anti-choice “Freedom Rides” that …

This is absolutely false and horrible – Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall made a statement last week that disabled children are a punishment sent by God to women who have had an abortion in the past.

It blows my mind that anyone – and much less a member of the Commonwealth’s General Assembly – could say something so absolutely terrible. He said this during a press conference to oppose funding for Planned Parenthood.

No matter what you think of Planned Parenthood (97% of their services, by the way, are focused …

As has been mentioneda few timeshere on Amplify before, crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are fake clinics set up to scare women out of making the decision to get an abortion and even to use birth control. These centers are the same ones that you see advertising “Pregnant and Scared?” and offering free pregnancy tests and “counseling”, and even though they’re set up to look legitimate, are generally not medical offices and typically promote unbiased and medically inaccurate information. One of their favorites is that abortion causes breast …

A few weeks ago I married my sweetheart in a beautiful outdoor civil ceremony. We’ve been together for years and have been talking about marriage for just as long: did we want to be married? Is it fair to enter into “opposite marriage” when same-sex couples in most states can’t? How do we throw a fun party while not getting sucked into the draining wedding industrial complex? What does marriage entail for couples’ finances? Family obligations? Names?

As blogger m_chandler let us know, the Pittsburg Board of Education voted a few weeks ago to have a comprehensive sex education policy in schools. This is a huge accomplishment for Pittsburg (and all the youth activists who took a stand!) but the rest of Pennsylvania is largely still lagging behind. The state gets a big fat F on its sex ed report card due to the harmful abstinence-only funding coming

Florida—the state best known for sunny beaches and spring break—is becoming known for its horrible abstinence-only policies about sex education. As information comes to light about all the sexual health misinformation being taught in Florida’s classrooms (and as we are reminded that the volume of harmful abstinence-only money funneling into the state is second only to the amount pouring into Texas), it’s heartening that there is a coalition standing up for Florida’s youth.

It’s a good time for this…the sexual health situation in Florida is particularly bad right …